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Data isn’t just some boring table of numbers—it’s your secret weapon. Whether you’re trying to fine-tune your marketing strategy, arm your sales team with actionable insights, or make smarter business decisions, data is what lights the way. This was the big takeaway from Agnel D’Cruz, Principal of Data Partnerships at ZoomInfo, during his appearance on the GTM Secrets podcast with Stephen Lowisz. Together, they demystified the game-changing role of data partnerships, the biggest challenges marketers face, and how platforms like ZoomInfo drive real business impact.
If data is on your radar—but feels like more of a traffic jam than a fast lane—this blog will walk you through key insights from their conversation, plus some tactical moves to up your game.
A Day in the Life of a Data Disruptor
Agnel doesn’t just crunch numbers—he bridges gaps. Responsible for leading ZoomInfo’s data partnerships, his work focuses on identifying where customers need help and finding solutions that make sense. On any given day, his role is split between three core activities:
- Talking to internal teams to discover cracks in data pipelines or unmet customer needs. These conversations might involve product managers, engineers, or data scientists.
- Getting hands-on in the data to spot inefficiencies or areas of opportunity, using his expertise to guide decision-making.
- Building external relationships with data providers to plug gaps and explore complementary opportunities.
What makes it work? According to Agnel, it’s a blend of technical know-how and, just as importantly, people skills. “It’s partly an art and partly science,” he said. And that balance is often what separates industry leaders like ZoomInfo from the competition.
Why Doesn’t Everyone Just Build Their Own Data Teams?
It’s a fair question. If companies can hire their own data scientists, engineers, and researchers, why would they turn to a platform like ZoomInfo? Agnel broke it down into two words—expertise and efficiency.
ZoomInfo aggregates and refines data from a vast network of sources, reduces complexity, and delivers it in a ready-to-use format. Doing it alone isn’t impossible, but it’s an uphill battle. Businesses would need expensive teams, robust legal frameworks (hello, compliance!), and even then, they wouldn’t benefit from the scale ZoomInfo provides.
The real win for businesses lies not just in having access to data but in having a trusted partner to simplify and enrich that data.
Real-world takeaway:
Say you’re a B2B company targeting mid-level decision-makers at Fortune 500 companies. Without ZoomInfo, you’d spend months (if not years) patching together disparate data pieces and verifying their accuracy. ZoomInfo, on the other hand, provides verified contact info, intent signals, and even conversation histories—all integrated under one roof. That’s speed and precision you can’t replicate easily in-house.
The Marketing Pitfalls That Stop Growth
Agnel and Stephen hit on a painful truth during the podcast—marketers keep making the same mistakes when it comes to data. The result? Big budgets with small results. If this sounds familiar, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Here are the traps and how to avoid them.
Pitfall 1: Chasing Shallow Metrics
Marketers love to track MQLs (marketing qualified leads) and SQLs (sales qualified leads). But here’s the problem—they’re often superficial. Knowing you had X amount of traffic or Y number of leads is a numbers game, not a strategy.
What you should be asking is why. Why did traffic bounce? What does the intent behind a visit look like? And what’s slowing your prospects down in their decision-making process?
Tactical Tip:
Take a more nuanced approach to your KPIs. Tools like ZoomInfo’s CoPilot allow you to overlay intent data and real-time interactions, giving you deeper insights into why prospects are engaging—or why they’re not. Instead of asking how many people filled out a form, dig deeper. What drove them to that page? Where did they spend the most time?
Pitfall 2: The Silo Trap
Here’s a nightmare Agnel is all too familiar with—different departments operating in isolation, each managing their own data streams. Why’s it so bad? Because no one’s aligned. You could have sales chasing completely different leads than what marketing identified as high-quality. You could also have outdated data hitching a ride all the way through your GTM pipeline.
Tactical Tip:
Pull all your data sources into a single platform or, better yet, find a partner that can integrate it for you. For example, ZoomInfo streamlines silos by merging, cleaning, and normalizing datasets—so you’re always working from a single, accurate source of truth.
Pitfall 3: Forgetting the Customer
One of the boldest points Agnel made during the podcast was about empathy—or lack thereof. Too many organizations are stuck in their own heads, obsessing over what they offer instead of solving real-life customer pain points.
Tactical Tip:
Shift your focus from selling to solving. Start every campaign by asking, “What’s the core problem my customer has that I can make disappear?” Spend time on the frontlines, whether in customer meetings or by analyzing qualitative feedback. The best data strategy is one rooted in customer empathy.
What Makes ZoomInfo Different?
ZoomInfo isn’t the only data game in town, but it’s built its reputation on consistency and impact. Agnel pointed to two specific advantages ZoomInfo offers over competitors.
- Cleaner, Better Data
Competitors might promise quantity, but what happens when you have to clean and normalize it yourself? Agnel called out one key issue—hidden costs. Cheaper providers often saddle customers with the task of sorting incomplete or inaccurate data, making the upfront “savings” a mirage.
- Efficiency at Scale
One recurring piece of feedback ZoomInfo gets from its customers is that their internal teams simply work faster—with fewer interruptions—when using tools like CoPilot. For sales teams, that means fewer emails needed to close a deal and fewer wasted hours chasing bad leads.
ZoomInfo Pro Insight:
Pair CoPilot with ZoomInfo’s de-anonymization feature. Picture this—someone just spent 10 minutes exploring your pricing page but didn’t fill out a form. With de-anonymization, you identify who they are and tailor a personalized pitch that hits their inbox the next day. That’s precision.
How to Build a Winning Data Strategy
Whether you’re building or refining your data strategy, the right moves will separate the top performers from the underwhelming. Here’s Agnel’s hard-earned advice on where to start:
- Think Beyond Yourself
Don’t fixate on what your solution does. Focus on making it easy for your customers to solve problems. Personalized campaigns that reflect this mindset don’t just generate leads—they create advocates.
- Eliminate Friction
Tools matter. The ones that automate tedious tasks, reduce errors, and elevate accuracy save you more time and money than any spreadsheet wizardry.
- Personalize Everything
Your audience doesn’t want to be marketed to—they want to feel understood. Use tech like ZoomInfo’s CoPilot to craft campaigns that actually speak to what your prospect wants (not to mention ones that save your team time).
- Tame the Data Beast
Ignoring data silos will eat your company’s ROI alive. Take a holistic approach by centralizing insights, whether through an in-house team or external partnerships.
- Always Iterate
Success in data isn’t static. Stay open to feedback from internal teams and customers alike, and use it to tweak your approach constantly.
Final Thoughts
Data is powerful, but only if you know how to harness it. Listening to Agnel on GTM Secrets drives home a critical point—it’s not just the data you have; it’s what you do with it that matters. From busting silos to bringing empathy into your strategy, the key to winning is how well you adapt your tools to serve your customer.
And with tools like CoPilot, de-anonymization, and a commitment to accuracy, ZoomInfo proves that great data isn’t just a goal—it’s an unlock for your entire business. The question now is, are you ready to get intentional about how you use data to grow?
Your move.
